From Game Character to Comic Character

I know I'm probably not the first person to think of doing this, so I figured I'd see what other people did. I've been playing a character of mine for a couple years now in City of Villains and it's only natural to wonder about the idea of making him his own comic for novelty's sake.

I've tossed out some feelers already for prices and concepts of the character, and recieved a few less than generous offers. Has anybody been where I am? Gotten happy results? Please share! Artists, prices, whatever. I've got a little mini story in my head, but obviously don't possess the art skill to make it appear on paper as more than stick figures =P.

Thanks for the help folks.

Commissioned comic books from an established artist are probably going to run a minimum $75-$100 a page.

Have you tried reaching out to a college with an art program ? There are always young illustrators who want to break into the comic industry. A commissioned priject like this will allow them to build their portfolio and make some money on the side.

It gets worse. Say you even go down from that price from someone feeling generous.

So let's say $50 a page, just to round it down. That's ONLY for pencils.

Now you'll need an inker. Or if you want that natural pencil look, you could just send it to a colorist. So that's another $100 per page... at least. And again I am low balling... but you have to pay each stage of the game.

By some miracle you find someone who will do it all for say $150 a page, 10 pages start to become a mortgage payment, if you get my drift. Most stories take at least 20 pages... and you haven't even spoken about a cover artist.

But yes, you could find some hungry artist out there who will do it for some ridiculous price, but ask yourself this... is paying someone 10% of what they're worth, worth it to you to produce your story. Because, even though the artist is young, and the work could go in their portfolio, THAT is no excuse to devalue someone.

I'm not trying to be mean, just to make you understand the reality of what you're asking. Good luck with your project.

I also would like to add in a little something here Comic pages are a lot of work. That is only one of the reasons why they cost so much.
Also are you writing your story as a comic ready script or is it just a short story? Comic writing requires thinking in terms of page economy. Layout. Something that could take a paragraph to write could be between 1 panel to multiple pages. When I did the commission comic I did recently I had to convert it from a short story to a script. I originally got it to a comfortable 20 pages- a standard for comics as someone pointed out. I was working at a comfortable 3 to 5 panels per page depending on the action/dialog. I had to shrink it down to 10 pages and was averaging about 7 panels per page. It came out rather cramped and I had to lose a few things that would have looked cool..(upside I had to draw fewer cars >_>;

Another note on students. Finding someone who will work cheap if they are still in school. You're also working with someone who probably hasn't commissioned much before or done a full comic. If that's the case they might seek out friends who have for help or others for what they should charge. Then you're not just working with the person you want to hire you're working with everyone who doesn't want them to get "screwed over".

Bringing a story to life is a big undertaking so be sure to really weigh all your options. Deviant art's forums have a place for hiring people but if you post there be upfront about how much you are willing to spend and don't be surprised if not many people don't want to work for little. Or if some people get nasty...trolls are trolls.

You could always check the multimedia forums for using the Demo editing to create a comic from screenshots in game. I have seen alot of cool comics from players of this game.
Create a comic using the screenshots and demo edit and use your money to commission an artist later for a cover or select scenes. Good luck!